February 14, 2006
Neglect in our backyard: the U.S. and the Caribbean
While the Middle East attracts just about all of our attention, we are likely losing a popularity contest in the Caribbean.
Today Opinion Journal has an article entitled, "10 Months in the Bahamas: How Castro stretches his tyranny to other shores." It tells the story of the Bahamas jailing two Cuban dentists whose escape boat foundered in nearby waters, despite the United States offering to update their visas. Excerpt:
The real problem is that the Bahamas fears Castro and the retaliation he might unleash--especially a mass refugee exodus--if the escapees are allowed to reach liberty in America. So its compromise with the dictator has been to keep the doctors separated from their families. ... The Bahamas is part of the British Commonwealth and, the last time we checked, a civilized place. Now would be a good time to prove this by releasing the dentists, whose only crime is fleeing for freedom.
I think there is a larger problem here. The Bahamas may fear Castro, sure. But it's also possible that Bahamians LIKE Castro (based partly on his shrewd playing of racial solidarity cards) and are fairly happy to co-operate with him. This is merely a suspicion on my part, but it's based on personal observations on Castro's popularity in Tobago.
I sent this response to OpinionJournal (reprinted here, scroll down to subhead "Fidel's Propaganda") regarding the article above:
There is a larger story here, one of Cuba's influence around the Caribbean.I was stunned on a visit to in-laws in Tobago a year ago to hear Castro mentioned constantly and favorably.
If you asked people -- newscasters, young students, dancers -- where they wanted to visit, they said "Cuba" rather than the United States. And Cuban arts groups were slated to visit Tobago -- there seemed to be a two-way interaction going on.
Not a soul had a bad word for the Maximum Leader or realized how he imprisons dissenters.
The experience made me think the United States needs to do a far better job of reaching out and spreading the truth in the Caribbean -- Fidel seems to be controlling his image a bit too well.
Of course, part of my thinking a year ago in Tobago, as I chewed over the problem, was daydreaming of how perfect I would be for the role of roving ambassador-at-large to the Caribbean. On my job application, I would note my qualifications: Love the United States! Articulated this love in my first book! Also love tropical weather, salsa music and watching parrots! Hit it off with island people quite well! Will shortly have TWO books with full details on THAT! You gotta appoint ME!
Once I had this cushy appointment, Ambassadress to the Islands, I really would focus immediately on having student, artist and journalist exchanges between the United States and Caribbean nations. Scholarships to U.S. institutions for college-age students. ESPECIALLY journalism fellowships for Caribbean journalists, to Stanford and Georgetown.
We'd market Orlando, Fla., and Las Vegas as cheap destinations for the Caribbean middle class. (Believe it or not, there is one, especially on Trinidad.)
Oh heck I am free associating here.
But my point is: The simplest solution to anti-Americanism I have found is to have people actually see the United States for themselves.
I recall my friends Roger and Joanne, from Zimbabwe and South Africa respectively. We worked together at a newspaper in Surrey, England, two decades ago. They were quite critical of the United States based on whatever tendrils of biased media reporting had managed to reach them -- until their first visit. After that, they contacted me, red-hot to do a job exchange or something that would allow them to live here, at least temporarily.
And for those who can't see the United States for themselves, let's have them meet American teachers and journalists. For example, my husband Lamont was quite a hit a year ago when he spoke to a large assembly Tobagonian students about how to do newspaper graphics. There was almost a Freedom School excitement to his presentation. The students were hungry for information on software, jobs, logistics, anything he could tell them. It can't have hurt the image of our country.
No sooner had I finished sending my note above to OpinionJournal than did I click over to National Review Online and read THIS: "Red China on the March: The People’s Republic moves onto Grenada."
Oh no -- let's review here. Both Cuba and China are moving aggressively to court Caribbean nations and the Bahamas (technically in the Atlantic), while we do nothing. This is seriously not good. One more time -- China, which is poised to be a countervailing world superpower (I devote a chapter to this in 
An Amateur's Guide to the Planet), is establishing its presence in our cozy little neck of the hemisphere.
Excerpt from Mosher's article:
In January 2005, Grenada established diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China, breaking off its longstanding relationship with Taiwan in the process. The sudden move followed a hotly contested election in which the ruling party won by the smallest of margins. The PRC has opened a substantial embassy in the tiny island nation — Ambassador Shen Hongshun and entourage arrived in April — and is rebuilding, at considerable expense, the national soccer stadium that was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. Other aid has been promised, including funds for scholarships in China and the renovation of the main hospital.China's move into Grenada clones a pattern it has followed elsewhere in the eastern Caribbean. Exactly the same scenario was played out last year in the neighboring island of Dominique, and some years ago in St. Lucia. Each of these island republics now has a full-scale Chinese embassy, a completed or promised national soccer stadium, and is receiving continuing aid.
Here's the money quote. Author Steven W. Mosher gets to the heart of the problem -- the lack of a countervailing U.S. influence in this part of the world:
But this alone does not explain China's continuing aggressive and expensive efforts to bring these small nations — Grenada has less than 100,000 people — under its sway. With staffs ranging from five to ten people, these embassies are able to hold regular meetings and informal dinners with leading political figures, and to monitor the eastern Caribbean's political and economic environment on a daily basis.By way of contrast, the U.S. doesn't even maintain a single diplomat in any of these countries. Instead, the U.S. ambassador to Barbados is jointly accredited to the other island nations in the Eastern Caribbean and is a complete stranger to most eastern Caribbean figures in the public and private sector.
Mosher's solution, which doesn't sound as fun and concrete as my idea to sail around and set up arts and student and journalist exchanges, is to "stop taking the region for granted." He does note that the United States only reacted "after the fact, as we did after a communist coup in Grenada in 1983. That crisis, it is well to recall, would have been much worse if other Caribbean nations had not taken a firm stand against the Russian and Cuban-supported coup, and voted in favor of U.S. intervention. Would the new crop of politicians, so assiduously courted by China, come down on our side in the event of a similar problem?"
Good question.
I just finished reading Marie Arana's fabulous 
American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood
Were not quite there yet in the Caribbean. It's time to wake up and just simply spread the truth of what the United States stands for, and is. There is no great distance, and less of a cultural gap, between Miami and Port-of-Spain. We can do this and it won't cost billions.
Update: Another OpinionJournal reader, David Paulin, responded that the situation in Jamaica is similar to that in Tobago:
Jamaica is another member of the British Commonwealth which has accorded similarly outrageous treatment to Cuban asylum seekers. One notable case occurred in late 2002 when I was working in Kingston, the capital, as a freelance journalist.One day, eight skilled Cuban workers in their 30s and 40s arrived in a rickety fishing boat and requested political asylum. However, they were promptly taken to a jail cell in Montego Bay. Two months later they were deported--just one day after their requests were denied. Much to the outrage of their Jamaican lawyer, human rights activists, and the local representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the men were not allowed the right to appeal the denial of their asylum petition.
In the past, similar fates were accorded other Cuban asylum seekers in Jamaica. Haitian asylum seekers, on the other hand, had been granted asylum after being allowed to appeal the initial denial of their asylum petitions. Jamaica's conduct prompted a letter of reprimand from the U.N.'s Commission on Refugees, reminding Jamaican officials of their obligation toward refugees under the U.N. charter.
Among Bahamian officials, the ill treatment of Cuban asylum seekers may indeed be motivated by fear of Castro. In Jamaica, I suspect the ill treatment is due to the esteem in which Jamaica's left-leaning and ruling elite hold Castro and his regime. Because of this, they're reluctant to do anything that puts a negative light on either. Such conduct is calculated and willful. As such it is far more odious than the fear that apparently motivates Bahamian officials.
- posted by jbelliveau at 9:04 AM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
